The Shield Deserve a Bigger PPV Spotlight at Night of Champions

At WWE's Night of Champions pay-per-view (PPV) event next month, The Shield should be booked by WWE to return to relevancy.

OK, so one could argue that Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns did become prominent again on this past Monday’s Raw when they were introduced as the McMahon family’s new personal security.

Look at this segment more closely, though, and you will see that The Shield’s position hasn’t truly been elevated.

Indeed, the trio—once one of wrestling’s hottest acts—looks to have been demoted as nothing more than glorified security guards at this point.

Triple H’s deeply dismissive behavior to the three during the segment only reinforced this. “Hey, Shield guys, move!” he casually yelled at one point, apparently forgetting their names.

(Despite being practically retired, Triple H remains an expert at burying younger talent. I guess some habits are hard to break.)  

Oh, and then Daniel Bryan managed to take on—and beat down—all three Shield members with relative ease en route to confronting the McMahon clan and Orton. OK, so now not only are they hired help, they’re totally incompetent hired help too. Brilliant.

(You could argue this happened to establish Daniel Bryan as a dangerous butt-kicker, but soon after dispatching The Shield he was taken out by Triple H and Orton anyway. So what was the point?)

Sure, their association with this new corporate heel group has raised their profile, but does that matter much when they are clearly supporting players and little else?  

The McMahons, and to a lesser extent Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan, are the main focal points here, not Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns.    

That the once fearsome trio now struggle to win handicap matches in which they have a clear numbers advantage isn’t helping matters either.  Come on, should The Big Show really have been able to put up a fight against all three guys for as long as he did?

Of course not.

Ideally, things will turn around for Ambrose, Rollins and Reigns at the Night of Champions pay-per-view. 

Reigns and Rollins seem to be headed for a showdown with Big Show and Mark Henry—possibly with the tag team belts on the line. Ziggler and Ambrose may also be set to clash at the event, judging by their interaction on Monday’s Raw.  

The group should go over in each of these encounters—and go over strong. How else are they going to put themselves back on the map?

If WWE accomplishes anything with the Night of Champions pay-per-view, it should be returning The Shield to their former glory.  It would be such a shame to see them relegated to being little more than disposable McMahon family henchmen for the next few months.